Here you can read the terrible events that unfolded at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida,
on Wednesday.

Seventeen people – children and adults – were killed when a
gunman entered the high school on Wednesday afternoon and launched an attack.
Twelve people were found dead inside the school, two were killed outside the
building, one in the street, and two died later in hospital from their injuries.

The suspect has been named by police as 19-year-old Nikolas
Cruz. He was arrested at the scene and is being questioned by
investigators.

The killer was armed with an AR-15 rifle and “multiple
magazines”, police said.

Cruz was formerly a student at Douglas, but was expelled
for disciplinary reasons. A teacher at the school said staff had been warned not to let him back
on campus. The suspect had reportedly been receiving treatment for mental
health issues.

Twelve of those killed have been identified, police said on Wednesday evening. No names of
victims have yet been released, but Sheriff Scott Israel said a football coach was among those lost.

Fifteen victims remain in hospital: five in a
life-threatening condition and 10 with injuries that are not life-threatening.

Students who had been at school with Cruz said many classmates had predicted he could “do something” to harm
them and that he had previously brought guns to school.

Teacher Melissa Falkowski said drills for a code red (active
shooter) situation had been well rehearsed:

We could not have been more prepared for this situation … we have trained for
this, we have trained the kids for what to do … We did everything that we were
supposed to do.

I feel today like our government, our country, has failed us and failed our
kids and didn’t keep us safe.

Distressing messages from children in lockdown inside the school to
their parents show the terror as teachers barricaded their
students into classrooms and closets to evade the gunman.

The tragedy appears to be the eighth deadliest mass shooting in contemporary US
history. It is also one of at least eight US school shootings so far
in 2018 that have caused injury or death.

President Donald Trump tweeted his “prayers and
condolences” to those affected, but decided not to speak about the
attack, reports said.

But others said thoughts and prayers were not enough. Chris
Murphy, senator for Connecticut – site of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting,
in which 26 children and adults were killed – said:

This happens nowhere else other than the United States of America. This
epidemic of mass slaughter, this scourge of school shooting after school
shooting.

It only happens here not because of coincidence, not because of bad luck, but
as a consequence of our inaction. We are responsible.